Wind farms are the modern equivalent of hydroelectric damns. Back in the day they used to build damns with a projected 50 year break even point, and after 50 years, it would make money. Today we build these wind farms expecting them to start making money in 5 years. There is a damn not far from me in Ann Arbor, the Barton damn, built in 1912, it generates 4.2 million kwh / year about a million dollars worth of electricity. We are just too impatient to solve our energy needs. These wind farms once built should last for hundreds of years with proper maintenance. I also think wind farms are beautiful. Birders, people who own condos on the shore, these "looking at nature" people hate wind farms because it somehow interferes with their view. The amount of "looking at nature" people will always outnumber the "being in nature" people. That's who is going to wreck this wind farm. The voice of kiters compared to all the "looking at nature" people is insignificant. But I guess it helps to vent.

Thanks for the links. I've just had a quick flick through for now (will have a proper look when I get some time) but it seems these study proposals all cover the very local affects the turbines have on those downstream, within a farm? My description was more referring to the effect far downwind of these turbines, as I think was Johnny's point (I may be massively missing his point). That is, look you can see its mixing up lots, so its really big, so far downwind it will be smooth

SSK wrote:

@Samskiter, Thanks for the link. That book is well written, and it is the facts without emotion

think the point he was trying to make about the picture was something along the lines of "look, you can see the water vapour particles getting mixed up really well, so all the lumps and bumps in the wind will get mixed out too". laminar flow would be terrible in this case! you'd have 'holes' in the wind. good job it all get's mixed up! thank god for turbulent mixing.

With all due respect your talking nonsense, wind Turbines genreally have a life of 20 years. not hundreds. (your figures don't even add up!! $1M/4.2MWH =AUP of 23 cents) i doubt your paying 23cents per kWHPeople look to make money from the time there comissoned.

Get the life span, apply a discount value, get the Present Value, put a PPA in place or if large enough trade on open market.

A maintainenace contract will ensure a minimum level of kWh is generated.

you know the annual cost and can predict the annual output, if the cost> income then it won't be built.

With all due respect your talking nonsense, wind Turbines genreally have a life of 20 years.

Yes hundreds. According to Matt Stein from nexion DG (wind turbine refurbishing company), if you refurbish the wind turbine every 15-20 years it will last indefinitely. There are some wind farms built in 1980 which are still in perfect working order and with maintenance look to last for at least a hundred years. We can debate this topic, but don't say it's nonsense. And most importantly, a 20 or 30 year old wind turbine produces energy at about 50% the cost of a brand new turbine because it's cheaper to refurbish than build new. Also thansk for catching my error what should it be 1/6th of that so about $150,000 per year, that looks better.

Last edited by edt on Tue Jan 15, 2013 12:23 am, edited 2 times in total.

I did have some numbers on the roll out and maintenance of new wind farms somewhere, but they are lost in a pile of lecture notes somewhere. There are a shocking number that need to be repaired soon after being put up. Im sure the technical issues are getting worked through though. Another issue is there's a huge amount of concrete and steel that goes in to offshore wind which makes producing them on mass a challenge...

Someone who repairs turbines would say that. If you compare the technology and output of a 20 year old turbine against a new one you'll see the new one has a much higher output and CP.Your better off replacing it. 20 years ago they wee synchronous turbine you kow looking at dual fed asynchronous turbines as standard. No with old in with new

Your better off replacing it. 20 years ago they wee synchronous turbine you kow looking at dual fed asynchronous turbines as standard. No with old in with new

Right. The reason we replace instead of refurbish right now is because back then we had no clue how to build them. I think a more modern design is more likely to just be refurbished 20 years from now instead of replaced.

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